2017 Year In Review AND An Out-of-Order This Book Cannot Make Any Money post…

As promised last weekend, today I’m going to do my “Year in Review” for 2017. After that, I’ll be giving my Marscon schedule (since it arrived this week), but first, an announcement:

“This Book Cannot Make Any Money” was submitted to KDP Print and is now live on the Amazon store, though in print form only. Keep in mind that I was never able to get a print proof (the reason I decided to do this series NOW rather than a few months from now was that KDP Print had announced they were now offering print proof options, which made me want to try them out. I’m a bit frustrated to learn, in the end, that I wasn’t in the beta group offered the ability to buy print proofs).

Not having a print proof is both good and bad for the “This Book Cannot Make Any Money” series. It’s good, in that I’m forcibly unable to “cheat” and spend money on the proof copy, and must only use the “free” online reviewer tools to see how things come out. It’s bad because, well, I know from working with Createspace that print copies can look dramatically different in real life than they do in the virtual proof on-line.

You can go ahead and buy a (print) copy now (I will not be able to get around to working on an ebook copy until after Marscon), but be warned that these may be (ahem) misprints, at least until after I’ve had a chance to go through the print copy.

Now for the Year in Review:

I had two publications in 2017. One was the short story (really novella), “A Gun for Shalla,” published in the “Worlds Enough: Fantastic Defenders” Anthology. I have no idea how, exactly, the sales have been for it, but the reviews have generally been very good to excellent. The point of an anthology like this is not to turn a profit, necessarily, but rather to cross-pollinate the fanbases of multiple authors, and good reviews help with that.

As far as the books I actually have stats on, however:

In Treachery Forged sold 195 ebook copies and one print copy. Yeah, my print sales never do well. One hundred ninety five copies may sound small, but it’s been out for four years and there were no new books in the series released this 2017, so that’s not too bad. I expect sales of this book to go UP in 2018, as I intend to get the third book out. It remains my best-SELLING ebook (though it is no longer my biggest money-maker, as we’ll get into later).

In Forgery Divided sold 182 ebook copies and TWO print copies. While it’s only in its second year, I’m still satisfied with those sales, as — again — there were no new books in this series in 2017.

The Kitsune Stratagem sold 32 ebook copies and three print copies. The Kitsune Stratagem has ALWAYS underperformed, and I have yet to understand why; I honestly believe it’s my best book, but it always seems to get the fewest sales no matter what I do as far as marketing for it goes. I’m hoping to “re-launch” it when I get the next book in the series out, but its low sales have reduced the priority of that next book significantly. I really, really want to get back into this series, however. There’s an outside chance I’ll get to its sequel in 2018, but I doubt it.

One oddity: While The Kitsune Stratagem is my worst-selling full-length novel in eBook form, it ALSO is my best-selling print book… with fifteen print sales, lifetime. I really, really wonder if print books are worth it, sometimes, considering how much time they take out of my writing.

To the Rink of War is a special case. I don’t really count it as a “book,” because it isn’t one: It’s a short story, or rather (by the standards established by the SFWA) a novelette. Priced at $0.99 (which is the LOWEST I can set the price; no, I can’t make it free) I literally get nothing more than pocket change from each sale. And, until this year, I could just about count the number of sales on my fingers (that’s hyperbole… but only just). But, well, there was a bit of a surprise resurgence of interest in this story. With 58 ebook sales (there is NO print version), I’ve literally tripled its lifetime sales in one year. Not great, but enough of a spark of interest that I thought I might re-visit the story, taking both it and its intended sequels and knitting them together to form a full-length novel. A novel is important enough I could afford to spend some money on things like a new book cover, better editing, etc. Originally I was going to try and get that out in 2018, but a radical shift in priorities makes that… unlikely.

Finally, there was The Merrimack Event. The Merrimack Event managed a grand total of 2,911 sales (which already makes it my second-best selling book, in terms of lifetime sales). In addition to that, however, this book was my first foray into the Kindle Select story, which put it into the “Kindle Unlimited Lending Library.” That is Amazon’s version of a “Netflix for Books,” a sales model I am dubious of, which nevertheless made this book the top-EARNING book of my career. I had 4,869,121 page reads through KULL. In addition to all that, I also signed an audiobook contract which earned me a $500 Advance, and should also start earning royalties at some point.

I’ve seen some authors go into financials (and I actually wrote it all out, but decided I was oversharing a bit). I will give you a bit on my expenses, though: I spent a grand total of $10 on marketing (not counting convention expenses, which I view more as research and networking, but some authors think of as marketing), gave away two (print) books (one to a cover artist, one to the cousin\IP attorney who helped me with my audiobook contract), and never ran a price discount on anything. I did spend about $150-200 on swag, but most of that was for the keychain-sized plushie Fennec Foxes that I’m not going to be doing much with until Ravencon, at the earliest. Given that I sometimes see authors report having spent thousands of dollars a year on marketing, often accompanied by deep discounts or even freebie giveaways, I think that’s notable.

So, a reasonably good year. I hope to do better in 2018, but there you go.

Now, for my Marscon Schedule:

· 5pmFriRoom LCostume in Fiction: Creating the Total Package

· 6pmFriLarge AuditoriumOpening Ceremonies

· 7pmFriRoom 5Fantasy Draft League

· 10pm FriRoom 7Research, Point of View, and Filtering

· 10am-12pm SatRoom 5Writer’s Workshop

· 3pmSatRoom LQuestions to Ask When Creating a Fictional Culture

· 7pmSatRoom 8Worldbuilding 201: Filling in the Details

· 8pmSatRoom 7Mapping Your Novel

· 9pmSatRoom LIt Takes a Village Moving at 80% of the Speed of Light

· 1pmSunRoom 7The Name Came First

Obviously, I’ll be too busy at the convention next weekend for a normal blog entry, though I may be able to write a (BRIEF) recap from the hotel, if I’m feeling up to it. I should resume the “This Book Cannot Make Any Money” posts soon, however, starting with the second part of that darned book cover post.